It was the year when South Africa hosted the football world as well as the relics of St Thérèse of Lisieux, the clerical abuse scandal exploded again in several European countries, Pope Benedict was welcomed warmly in secular Britain and spoke on condoms, and Southern Africans responded generously to the suffering people of Haiti. GÜNTHER SIMMERMACHER [...]

It was the year when three priests were murdered in South Africa and the country got a new president, while Pope Benedict visited the Holy Land, hosted the second Synod for Africa, closed the Year of St Paul and opened the Year for Priests, lifted the excommunication of four schismatic bishops and gave converting Anglicans [...]